Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid discharging apparatus.
Background Art
Conventionally, as a liquid discharging apparatus, there is known an ink-jet head which discharges an ink from a nozzle toward a recording medium as an object on which a recording is to be performed. This ink-jet head is provided with a head body formed with a plurality of nozzles and a plurality of pressure chambers communicating with the plurality of nozzles, respectively; and a plurality of piezoelectric elements (piezoelectric actuator) corresponding to the plurality of pressure chambers, respectively.
The plurality of pressure chambers are aligned to form a plurality of rows of pressure chambers, and the plurality of piezoelectric elements are also aligned to form a plurality of rows of piezoelectric elements corresponding to the plurality of rows of pressure chambers. One wire is drawn from each of the piezoelectric elements to one side in an arrangement direction of the rows of pressure chambers in which the rows of the pressure chambers are arranged side-by-side (direction orthogonal to the alignment direction of the pressure chambers) and is connected to one of signal input terminals. In a certain row of the piezoelectric elements, which is included in the plurality of rows of piezoelectric elements and arranged at an end on the wire-drawn side (on a side at which the signal input terminals are arranged), each of wires, drawn from piezoelectric elements belonging to another or other row(s) of piezoelectric elements and different from the certain row of piezoelectric elements, passes between two adjacent piezoelectric elements belonging to the certain row and adjacent in the alignment direction.
In a case that the above-described configuration is adopted, each of the wires is required to be arranged between two piezoelectric elements so as to secure a distance to some extent with respect to electrodes of the piezoelectric elements, while maintaining the insulation property among the respective wires. Further, in a case that the wires are arranged such that each of the wires is arranged while overlapping with a portion or part of the piezoelectric element(s), the overlapping wire inhibits or hinders the deformation of the piezoelectric element. Furthermore, in a case that the shape and/or size of the piezoelectric elements are made to be uniform and that the extent by which the wire overlaps with each of the piezoelectric elements is different among the piezoelectric elements, the characteristics are varied among the piezoelectric elements such that any uniform discharging characteristic cannot be obtained among the nozzles.
On the other hand, the alignment pitch (arrangement pitch) at which the nozzles are arranged to form a nozzle row or rows is required to be made small from the viewpoint of realizing a small-sized head and of high-density arrangement of nozzles. However, if the alignment pitch of the nozzles is made small, the alignment pitch of the pressure chambers is also made small corresponding thereto, which in turn makes it difficult to adopt the configuration wherein two adjacent piezoelectric elements belonging to a certain piezoelectric element row are capable of allowing a wire of a piezoelectric element, belonging to another piezoelectric element row different from the certain piezoelectric element row, to pass between the two adjacent piezoelectric elements.
An object of the present teaching is to provide a liquid discharging apparatus in which the alignment pitch of the pressure chambers (piezoelectric elements) can be made small while allowing a wire of a piezoelectric element belonging to a certain piezoelectric element row to pass between other two adjacent piezoelectric elements belonging to another piezoelectric element row different from the certain piezoelectric element row.